Enewsletter

One
MEEEEEEELION Booklets

For a while now, I've
tried to figure out some way to
express the magnitude of this achievement,
and yet I've failed to come up with
anything adequate.

I know we face a huge
task ahead of us -- literally to
change the world at a fundamental
level -- but from my perspective,
starting when I met my vegetarian
roommate freshman year 20 years
ago, the speed and breadth of the
journey to date has been truly remarkable.

Back then, very little animal advocacy
movement in the U.S. was focused
on farm animals. There wasn't even
a color brochure for the purpose
of spreading vegetarianism (see
"VO's
Influences and History").

Eleven years ago, we were still
hand-collating, stapling, and folding
a batch of 10,000 black and white
booklets. It took Vegan Outreach
more than six years (from when we
started counting in 1994 until mid-2000)
to distribute the first million
booklets.

Now
there are single
days when activists
hand out 7, 8, and even 9,000 booklets.
With 2 months left in the year,
we have sent out over a million
booklets (2005's total was 863,604;
2004's was 620,542). Adopt
a College activists
have already given brochures directly
to over 200,000 students in the
Fall term!

Overall
distribution has now passed 5,000,000
brochures!

One thing hasn't changed, though.
Back then, Vegan Outreach was dependent
on donations from a small group
of thoughtful donors who believed
in honest, person-to-person grassroots
education.

This
is still the case. We have no high-profile
animals or individual cases of cruelty
to highlight, no prospect for any
immediate "victory." So
we are extremely grateful to the
relative handful of people who believe
in the reasoning
behind Vegan Outreach,
who are out there doing the day-to-day
outreach, and who are willing to
donate to print and distribute ever
more booklets.

We've always said that your donations
lead to more booklets reaching more
new people, and this year proves
it yet again!

Again, I know how very far we have
to go. But as I look back 20 years,
it is truly amazing how far we've
come, in terms of emphasis, focus,
tactics, numbers, recognition, awareness,
and options.

Progress
will continue to be uneven, and
our efforts will be filled with
frustrations, but there is no doubt
that we are bending the arc of history
towards justice.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone!

-Matt Ball

From the top: Jenna Calabrese,
Jon Camp, Victor Tsou, Jack Norris.

Vegan Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the suffering of farmed animals by promoting informed, ethical eating.